The 101 Scariest Horror Movie Moments of All Time (2022) s01e02 Episode Script
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[dramatic music]
♪
[screaming]
♪
Ahh!
♪
A lot of films,
in particular horror films,
have those watercooler moments
that people talk about.
[hissing]
And that sort of spreads
the mythology about the movie.
[screams]
If you haven't seen it,
you have to go see it,
and if you did see it,
you have a very,
very strong opinion about it.
And that opinion
is either shared
with other fellow
horror nerds
This is standard
horror movie stuff.
Ahh!
♪
Or disputed by people
who maybe don't love horror
or just don't agree.
[screams]
So it becomes
this hotbed of debate.
Either you're friends for life
because you love
the "Scanners" exploding head,
or you're all of a sudden
at arms with a friend
because they thought
it was too gross.
[barking]
And then you're just,
"What are you talking about?
That's impossible."
♪
To take the dank
out of the baggie, I got ♪
Five on it
From the trailer, I thought
"Us" was going to be
a Black version of that movie
I personally have seen
many times before.
A family is on vacation.
Ha-ha!
- He's kidding, right?
He's not kidding.
They're isolated.
Something bad happens.
♪
And it is the family
on vacation movie,
but it's also plus so much more.
♪
[screaming]
♪
The scene that
always hits me the hardest
also is my worst fear:
home invasion.
There's a family
in our driveway.
Huh, who is that?
That moment when they look
out into the driveway,
and they see four people
standing there,
and it is so well shot
'cause they're coming
from the POV of the window,
and they're all backlit,
and you don't exactly see
what they are.
It's vague,
but at the same time,
you see the terror
on the mom's face
Uh-uh.
- Hey, hey, hey, hey.
Uh-uh.
As she realizes that
they're in this isolated,
rural environment.
If there are four people
in their driveway,
they are not there for good.
You have these great moments
of family survival horror.
Everything's gonna be fine.
Calm down, okay?
And I love this about "Us."
Zora, the older daughter,
when the father says to Jason
Jason, give me the bat.
And Jason,
clueless, is like
What bat?
Zora has already run
and grabbed the bat
and brought it back.
There's one in the--
- Here, here.
Thank you.
She's definitely the one
I want on
my zombie apocalypse team.
Gabe!
- I got this, I got this.
♪
Jordan Peele, obviously,
he gets the terror,
along with the levity,
and, like, better than anyone.
Now, I thought
I already done told y'all
to get off my property, okay?
So if y'all want to get crazy,
we can get crazy!
♪
Hey, hey, hey, hey!
And it always makes me think,
if four people were standing
in my driveway
and absolutely determined
to get in my house, could they?
And I think most of us
are gonna answer,
"Probably."
Ahh!
We feel safe, but oh, my God,
we are so vulnerable.
Ah!
♪
Oh, please, please, please!
Stop right-- ahh!
I had the chance
to talk to Jordan Peele,
who's visited my UCLA class
many times,
and he's talked about sort of
the genesis also for "Us,"
which is this idea of,
what would happen if you
walked into a train platform
and you saw someone
who looked just like you
across the platform?
And it turned into "Us,"
this idea of not just
one doppelganger,
but an entire family
of doppelgangers.
It's us.
The one thing that is scary
about doppelgangers--
we all know that there are
two sides to ourselves.
With "Us," they brought that
to the front and center as to:
This is what life is.
This is what life can be.
This is the life
you have right now.
Is it yours?
And is it something
that you deserve,
or is it something that,
you know,
just happened to you
by pure circumstance?
And what happens
if that changes?
Don't look.
- Is he dead?
Don't look.
That is one of the biggest
surprises in "Us,"
is that it starts out
as a family vacation movie,
but it really ends up
making you wonder
about your own privilege,
and what you're doing with it,
and what
you're not doing with it,
and how unjust that is.
It's our time now.
Our time up there.
♪
Baa, baa, baa, baa, baa.
The setup to "The Witch"
is that a family of pilgrims,
who are too religious
for the religious community
that they're in,
strike out on their own
and go and sort of set up
in the middle of nowhere
in the woods,
and then are beset upon
by a witch or witches.
♪
Robert Eggers really wanted
to tell a folktale-style story
about a witch in pioneer time
and have everything be
exactly historically perfect,
including the words they say,
and the clothes they wear,
and the lighting that they use.
One shot that I always think
about in that movie,
which is just a perfectly
executed spooky moment,
is when Caleb is being drawn
to the house in the woods
by a beautiful woman.
♪
And then when
the camera pans around,
the hand that actually touches
him is an old crone's hand.
And that is like
a 21st century version
of moments in Hammer movies.
Like, "Captain Kronos:
Vampire Hunter"
has a sequence like that,
where a beautiful woman
suddenly becomes an old crone.
"Crone" is such an ugly word,
don't you think?
Such an ugly thing to be.
No, I don't think
I shall ever be one.
♪
[screams]
In a Hammer movie,
the scariest thing possible
is the ravages of time.
Something a bit cruel
about that.
Cruel but effective,
and "The Witch," I think,
sort of does a much more
elegant version of that shot.
♪
[screaming]
♪
"Zombi 2" is so unhinged.
They're coming back to life.
They're everywhere.
♪
This is Lucio Fulci
at his best.
The one scene of "Zombi"
that everyone will always
remember is the eyeball scene,
where a woman is being pursued
by a zombie,
and she locks herself
inside a room.
♪
And then she's kind of, like,
you know, waiting at the door,
waiting for the zombie.
The zombie breaks his way
through the door,
leaving
all this splintered wood,
grabs her head,
and then painstakingly slowly
brings it towards
this massive shard of wood
that is sticking out.
Why would a zombie do that?
I don't know.
You know, you never see zombies
really being that creative
in other zombie movies,
but this was a creative zombie
that really saw
an opportunity and took it.
A lot of it
is shot from her POV.
It goes back and forth
in kind of a crosscut,
where we're looking at her
as she's screaming
up at the zombie
with the shard getting closer.
And then slowly,
the shard comes into focus,
and everything else
goes out of focus.
♪
And then we go to the side shot,
as we realize
how close they're going.
[whimpering]
The anticipation is
really beautiful and morbid,
and you almost-- you kind
of want her to get away,
but you kind of
want her eye to pop.
And you're not sure up until,
like, the last minute,
what's gonna happen.
You know, you're not sure
if she's actually gonna get--
maybe she'll get away,
but I really hope her eye pops.
[screaming]
And it does.
♪
When the shard
actually goes in,
we see it in full
penetrative grossness.
It's gonna get really graphic
because it's Lucio Fulci,
so it's not just gonna intimate
that it's stabbing you
in the eye.
He's gonna stab that person
in the eye,
and you're gonna watch
every beautiful frame of it.
[screaming]
♪
And I think that's what
makes it so iconic
because he does not pull back
from just giving it to you.
This scene is so terrifying,
and it is because
it's an eyeball.
Fulci knows what will
really push audiences,
and the answer is eyeballs,
teeth
♪
And fingernails.
♪
Because those are things
that we embody with.
If that zombie had lunged
at her neck
[screaming]
I would have been like,
"Cool, zombie's
ripping her neck apart."
But I have no idea
how that feels.
But the idea of us being poked
in the eyeball with something,
most of us
will immediately cringe
because at some point,
we have felt that pain.
We know what it's like
to get poked in the eyeball,
so we're very sensitive.
♪
"The Changeling" opens
with a horrible accident,
where a man sees
his wife and child
get run over by a truck.
♪
He's a music professor.
He moves to a big house
When was the house
last occupied?
Let's see.
About 12 years ago.
Trying to get away
from everything
and restart his life somehow.
There we go.
And the house is
increasingly giving him signs
that there might be
something in there
that's a sign of
some kind of afterlife.
♪
That house is not fit
to live in.
♪
It doesn't want people.
So he has this toy that used
to belong to his daughter.
Um, that was Kathy's,
my daughter's.
And it's moved a few times
around the house,
and he doesn't
really understand it,
and at this point-- I think
later on, he will understand
that there's a child
playing in that house,
that there's the spirit of
a child that's trapped there,
but at this point,
he doesn't know anything yet.
And he eventually decides to go
throw the ball in the river
because he's just tired
of its antics.
♪
I understood the grief
that he was going through
in order to throw the ball away
and into the river,
and just to be gone with it.
Sometimes you need
that one talisman
that you need to get rid of,
that reminds you
of the pain and suffering
that is losing a child,
and knowing that,
"I need to let this go
and have it never come back."
♪
And then, your one biggest fear,
your one biggest life regret
comes just gently bouncing down.
♪
You know at that moment
this is inescapable.
When someone who looks
like George C. Scott,
who looks like he doesn't have
anything to fear in the world,
because he has experience,
because he has knowledge,
because he has strength,
because he's not
a scared little girl,
has those moments
of complete terror.
♪
And I think that's
really what sells
the moment with the red ball.
And every time
there's a scare in this movie,
what sells it is his expression.
There's nothing outward.
There's just those eyes
and the fact
that he's paralyzed.
And when you get really scared,
that's very often what happens.
You can't move.
You just look at it.
And this movie captures
that so well.
♪
Damn son of a bitch.
What is it you want?
What do you want from me?
I've done everything I can do!
There's nothing more to do.
♪
[soft orchestral music]
[singing in French]
Ahh!
With "Phantom of the Opera,"
the 1925 version,
he is closer to
a straight villain
than any other telling
that we've seen.
♪
But still very sympathetic.
This is a character
who has never experienced love,
and yet he is completely,
to his mind,
in love with this woman.
♪
The relationship with Christine
is so endlessly
interesting to me
because it's so abusive
and so terrible,
but in the most
heart-wrenching ways.
[soft music]
♪
When he brings her
down to his lair,
he's playing the organ.
He's working on the opera
"Don Juan Triumphant,"
which is, for him, about her--
about him finally
receiving the love
that he has been
hungry for forever.
And there's this moment
in the scene
where she reaches to him,
and you see him
kind of lean into it
like he's receiving tenderness.
[dramatic organ music]
♪
And then she tears
the mask away.
♪
The first time you see
his face, fully revealed,
lit, like,
that's the mask of death.
♪
You'll never scrub that
from your brain.
And I would kill to be able
to have sat in a cinema in 1925
and been amongst
a crowd of people
who had never seen anything
like that in their lives.
The screams
that must have erupted
in the aisles of the theaters.
My mother saw that movie
in the theater.
And she said people fainted.
You know, here's this gentle guy
wearing a flimsy mask
with lace underneath it
and stuff.
Then when the mask comes off,
he's this living skull.
The horror is meant to be,
like, the horror
of his disfigurement.
But that's not really
what the horror is here.
It's her.
It's Christine.
It's what she has done to him
and what she has taken from him
because of what
the mask represents to him.
To him, it's freedom.
To him, it's the possibility
of being seen
as something more
than his disability.
The film is ultimately
really raising that question
of what constitutes monstrosity,
the same way
that "Frankenstein" is.
Who is the real monster here?
♪
[indistinct chatter]
♪
[shrieking]
- Stop!
♪
Oh, "The Brood," man.
I'm not saying it's the reason
I got a vasectomy,
but I'm not saying it's not.
Oliver Reed plays
this psychologist
who's written a book on
0the physical expressions
of rage,
and how rage can
express itself on the body.
Show me your anger, show me!
Then I can understand it.
[screams]
Wow.
The man is a genius.
And Samantha Eggar's
character,
her rage is contained
in her mind,
but it's expressed through
these tiny little children
who become murderous
expressions of her rage.
[screaming]
Cronenberg has said publicly--
he's also told me
when we were working together--
that it was
a very personal film,
it was about divorce,
and I can see that.
You shouldn't say how much
you hate me,
and you're gonna stop!
It really is
an emotional film,
which is something
that a lot of his movies
kind of keep at a distance.
The final scene
in "The Brood,"
where we reveal the brood,
and Samantha Eggar
kind of lifts her gown
Look.
Is truly gross and disgusting.
First of all,
she's got these, like--
look like potato sprouts on her
that will grow
into these egg sacs.
We can get disgusted,
but if Frank gets disgusted,
he's gonna offend Nola, the ex.
And if she gets offended,
she's gonna get angry.
And Oliver Reed's
down in the bunkhouse,
you know, trying to get Candice.
You know, it's just, this room
of bunk beds of brood.
It's like the worse camp
in the world.
They're just, like,
you know, the worst.
And this parallel
action's going.
It's just so effective.
"The Brood" is interesting,
because it forces men
in particular to confront
the realities of pregnancy
and what it is
women have to go through.
And we do not understand
what it's like
to grow something inside of us
and then to try to get
that thing outside of our body.
And it's amazing,
but it's also--
it's true body horror.
And "The Brood" just takes that
and rubs your face in it.
Just seeing the scene
where she holds up a baby
after the sac has been opened,
and here it is,
covered with fetal blood,
and she licks it clean.
She is basically doing
the most natural thing
for her in the moment.
It might be disgusting,
but it was a very natural thing
for her.
And he is just there,
to the point where,
at one point, he, like--
Oh, God, Nola.
And she realizes that
he is just appalled by her.
No. I disgust you.
She offers up her baby,
and when the reaction
is disgust,
she says,
with a great deal of shock,
"I disgust you."
And it's just a moment, like,
"Yeah, you do!"
From her perspective,
it's beautiful,
and it's a part of her,
and it's something
that is of her body.
The mind-body dualism
that Cronenberg
deals with thematically
in almost all
of his horror films
is really wonderful, and unique,
and iconic specifically
to David Cronenberg.
Cronenberg just says,
"You can repress all you want.
It will come out
in some unpleasant ways."
[banging]
[screaming]
They're doing what
you want them to do!
♪
[screams]
I think some
of the most exciting cinema
of the last 20 years
is coming out of Korea.
♪
"A Tale of Two Sisters"
appeared to be
another one of those kind of
long-haired ghost films,
but it proved to be something
way more inventive
than anyone was expecting.
"A Tale of Two Sisters"
is about a young woman
who gets out of an institution,
an asylum,
and she returns home
to her family,
where she is now
with her sister,
their father,
and their new stepmom.
And as she's adjusting
to this life,
the stepmom is exhibiting
sort of wicked behavior,
classically wicked behavior.
[screaming]
There seems to be a haunting
in the home surrounding them.
[rattling breathing]
And so there's
a lot of psychological,
familial horror going on,
but also a supernatural element
that this is,
in some ways,
a classic ghost story.
Something is wrong, and you
just don't know with who.
♪
It's set inside
this very domestic setting,
inside the house.
And so, these places where
you think should be safe
Like your bedroom, your hallway,
suddenly become very sinister.
What we have is
a dinner scene where
our characters'
stepmother and father
are having lunch with
the stepmother's brother
and his wife.
And she's going on and on
about these stories.
It also uses that ploy
that is so brilliant,
where you get embroiled
in a domestic argument,
a dinner table scene,
which is universal
and relatable.
But then it is
suddenly escalated
by something really,
genuinely shocking.
[coughing]
The brother's wife
has this seizure.
♪
We don't know what kind
of medical condition she has.
We don't know much
about her character at all.
♪
But after she recovers,
she's driving away,
and she says
You see this horrible face
kind of staring at you
from where you don't expect,
underneath--
you know,
against the kitchen floor.
That's the big jolt,
where you don't see it,
coming out of nowhere.
Later, the stepmother
is in the kitchen,
and she bends down
to look underneath the sink.
♪
And as she does,
we're presented,
in the background,
with a girl in a green dress
seated at the table
with her head down.
There's no sting.
There's no crash zoom.
There's no startling sound.
It is silent.
And by the time you absorb
it visually, they cut away.
It is so masterfully done
that you tense up.
Every muscle in your body
kind of seizes.
And it was one
of the first times,
as an adult who'd spent
so much of his life
in this genre
and watching things,
that I started
to watch the film like this.
I was so swept up
by the dread of it all.
♪
[screams]
I think that
the kitchen jump scare
in "A Tale of Two Sisters"
is maybe one of the great
jump scares of all time.
It's a very classical scare,
a very classical piece
of anticipation,
and, you know,
searching under and looking.
And when that hand comes out,
it's one of those great moments
of, like,
oh, the old tricks still work.
Like, you know,
traditional horror filmmaking
can really still get you.
It's great. I love it.
[screaming]
♪
[groans]
[screams]
It's the movie!
The movie's to blame
for all this.
"Demons" was Lamberto Bava's
really big breakthrough.
It's still his biggest film
by far.
It was a huge release
all around the world.
Very popular.
Has almost no plot whatsoever,
which, in this case,
kind of became an advantage
because, you know, even the
dubbing didn't really matter.
What are they after?
I don't know, Baby Pig.
You ask them.
It's us they want, asshole.
See you in hell!
Guys, let's go!
You can walk out and go get
a popcorn for five minutes.
Doesn't really matter-- you can
walk back in, and you're good.
"Demons" is just hip.
It's cool.
♪
It's got a liveliness to it.
It's got a punk rock
attitude to it.
♪
So the setup
for "Demons" is that
there's this sneak preview
for a horror film
that's being held
in Germany, Berlin.
Are you sure you want
to cut class?
Mm-hmm.
And there's this big display
outside with a motorcycle
with a big steel mask,
à la Mario Bava's
"Black Sunday."
Fantastic.
Absolutely fantastic.
And then this woman gets
scratched by it on her face.
Ow, what was that?
Hey, you cut yourself.
- Oh, shit.
That'll teach you
to touch things.
She gets scratched by the mask
and goes into the bathroom,
and she starts to transform.
[gasps] Ahh!
And there's
this incredible sequence
where she's chasing
another audience member
and, like, scratches her.
Help!
The audience realizes
that something
has gone horribly wrong.
They're watching the movie
where this woman's
getting attacked in a tent,
and she's screaming,
and, you know,
there's this thing
running loose on screen.
And, you know,
our main girl says
Hey, there's somebody
behind the screen.
"There's something wrong.
I hear screaming."
And the guy she's with says
Come on,
it's the Dolby system.
I'm telling you,
those screams sound real!
And the screen suddenly
just splits right open,
and this infected girl
just flies right
through the screen.
What happened?
Holy shit!
She's a friend of mine.
Hey, baby, what happened?
Shit, baby, what happened?
And her fingernails-- these
amazing practical effects.
Her fingernails suddenly
just go like this,
and cut into the wood
on the floor.
♪
Gunk is coming out
of her mouth,
and things are, like,
misshapen and bubbling.
And my favorite part--
well, after her teeth fall out
because, you know,
you gotta grow in the new teeth
'cause you can't be a demon
without new teeth.
Her tongue sticks out,
and it's, like, this weird,
spiral, long thing.
Grotesque really
is the right word.
What I love about it is that,
when demon shit
starts to go down,
they all stand around
and watch it.
God, what's happening?
[chuckles]
Because we all know that's
what probably we would do.
And if there were cell phones
back in the "Demons" days,
people would be just sitting
there recording this poor woman
turning into a demon
on the stage.
Get out!
Everybody, get away!
Get out!
What are you waiting for?
Run!
When the transformation
is complete,
and she sort of,
like, tears her way
through this
former audience member's neck,
it again is calling back to
tearing through the screen.
And so we get
these continuous layers,
where the space between
fiction and reality
is essentially blurring.
It's too bloody of a movie.
- Ruth, shut up.
[screaming]
And it just descends
into absolute mayhem.
♪
Let's find the emergency exit!
[screaming]
Smash everything!
♪
And I also like the fact
that it's not really explained
what the film is,
where it came from,
why it turns people into demons.
Doesn't really matter.
What matters is demons
turning people--
other people into demons
and eventually breaking
out of the movie theater
to turn the whole world
into demons.
That movie is so much fun,
and that image of all the demons
with the glowing eyes--
it seems silly,
I'm sure, to another
generation of horror fan,
but it worked so well
for me when I was a kid.
♪
"Doctor Sleep" is
that sequel to "The Shining"
that was well worth waiting for,
revisiting Danny
as an older person
♪
Who comes across a young girl,
Abra,
who also has that "shining,"
who is in the crosshairs
of this hunting cult family
of not vampires,
but kind of vampires.
We are the True Knot,
and we endure.
♪
When I read "Doctor Sleep,"
there was one scene in the book
that was different than
everything else around it.
And that was where the story
became an overt horror story.
And that's in the murder
of Bradley Trevor,
the baseball boy,
at the hands of the True Knot.
Just saw your game.
You are ready for the majors.
Well played.
- Thanks.
It takes a group
of antagonists
who, up until that point
It's okay.
We're friends.
You want to hop in.
Are kind of cheeky,
they're kind of funny.
And then this scene happens,
and you understand how it is
that these creatures exist,
and how they eat, and how they
have these elongated lives.
And it's that they harvest
the life force
of these kids
who have the shining,
who have
these special abilities.
What better way
- No, please, let me go!
To build up
your main villain
I won't tell!
I won't tell, please!
Than to show her commit
the most horrendous act
that she could possibly commit?
It's just so utterly brutal.
You don't see children murdered
on screen a lot like that.
That's when you know that
a movie is really going there.
The kid, he's, like,
"Are you gonna hurt me?"
And Rose the Hat says
Yes.
- No!
"In fact, it makes it
better for us.
So yeah,
we're gonna hurt you a lot."
And before you know it,
he's screaming,
and the steam is coming,
and their eyes are glowing.
And it looks like this trippy,
like, orgy, almost.
♪
Jacob Tremblay
selling the shit out of it,
doing such a great job,
being so believable,
acting with no ego at all.
It shakes you to your core
because of the reaction
of this little boy.
The more he's in pain,
the more they can feed off it.
Again, you don't often see that,
but you also don't often see
the villains
actually enjoying that act.
What really made it scary
was not just
that he was being tortured
and murdered,
but this was a ritual
that was just an everyday part
of their existence.
This is how they feed.
This is just Tuesday
for them, you know?
We designed the shots
to keep the explicit violence
completely off screen.
And ultimately, it didn't
make a difference at all
because Jacob Tremblay
committed to
the performance so well
that you don't need to see
the explicit violence.
The pain and the anguish
on his face make it unbearable.
Sometimes,
it's a matter of frames.
Just lingering just
a little bit too long
is the thing
that's gonna make you turn off.
I screened it
for Stephen King.
He loved the movie,
and his only comment was,
"Boy, that baseball boy scene
"goes on a little too long,
doesn't it?
That's a bit much."
It turned out
to be about the sound.
[screaming]
It turned out
to be about Jacob's voice,
and it turned out to be
about the sound of the knife
and of the steam.
We cut the scene down to,
I think, about a quarter
of what it originally was.
And it remains the scene
where I would see people get up
and walk out during screenings.
Our executives would get up
and walk out.
My wife got up and walked out.
It's a devastating sequence.
Damn, I thought he had
another few minutes in him.
♪
They will say that
I have shed innocent blood.
What's blood for
if not for shedding?
With my hook for a hand,
I'll split you from your groin
to your gullet.
As a kid, night after night,
I would just assume,
if I opened up my eyes,
I would see Candyman
hovering above me.
Just night after night,
and I would just be paralyzed.
And I just wouldn't sleep.
And I knew if I tried to turn
on my side to go back to sleep,
my shoulder would touch him,
you know, just--
and then that would be it.
I would just get ripped
groin to gullet.
The legend
first appeared in 1890.
Candyman was the son of a slave.
He's chased by this mob,
and they smear honey
all over his body
from this nearby beehive.
And then the bees
sting him to death.
And supposedly, as he's dying,
they kind of taunt him
as "Candyman, Candyman."
They say his name five times,
and he dies.
Poor Candyman.
He's not just some monster.
He was a person.
And there still
is a person there.
And he really does reach out
to you delicately.
And then he brutally kills you.
[screams]
He's unlike all
the other movie monsters
because there's something
so real and also so beautiful.
Do you believe in me?
Tony Todd brought such
a depth to that character
and such a soulfulness
to that character
that I think
a lot of other actors
would have not done that.
They would have just kind of
played him as evil or wicked.
Her death will be a tale
to frighten children,
to make lovers cling closer
in the rapture.
And then Virginia Madsen,
that was a tour de force
performance for her as well.
♪
I think
the most significant scene
is the first time you see him.
It's in broad daylight.
Virginia's character, Helen,
has already been
through the wringer.
And as she searches for her car
in the middle of the afternoon,
about 100 meters away
is this tall, elegant gentleman
who's very gently
calling her name.
"Helen, Helen."
Yes?
- Helen.
There is something
very scary about parking lots,
first of all,
especially as a woman.
You want to walk through
the parking lot
with your keys ready like claws
in case someone bothers you.
And this is definitely
someone bothering you.
Helen, I came for you.
But the fact that
he had this hold on her
is part of
what makes it so scary.
So she's not reacting the way
she should be reacting.
She's just
sort of under a spell,
kind of like he's a vampire.
Be my victim.
And that's when I'm like,
"Oh, boy,
we're in trouble now."
Bernard Rose, the director,
had a hypnotist on set,
so whether it was actually
implied or not, who knows.
But she was put under for
every scene that involved me.
Forget about all the stabbing
the psychiatrist in the back.
[screaming]
Who doesn't want
to do that to their shrink?
But that moment of them meeting,
I think, is iconic as hell.
Clive Barker is so great
at coming up with scares
that you're not used to.
They come from left field.
They come
from a different direction.
But "Candyman," in particular,
the scene that
most affected me--
[grunting]
When Candyman, Tony Todd,
opens his mouth,
and there are live bees.
And that was for real.
That's not special effects.
That was pre-digital.
You can tell.
The veracity of that--
you know this is a guy
with a mouth full of bees,
and that freaked me out.
Listen, I got
my master's in theater, man,
and we were taught
to be fearless.
And you approach every role
as if it's a thing
that's just gonna be--
make that magic moment.
And I knew that
when I read the script,
nobody had ever done
that before,
and nobody's done it since.
It's freaky,
and it still feels freaky.
I mean, I can feel them
humming around inside my mouth.
It was crazy.
But you gotta love this.
You gotta love it.
If you don't love it,
walk the fuck away.
♪
[soft music]
What is that?
- A caper.
It's a rat turd.
A what?
- A rat turd.
A caper.
- If it's a caper, eat it.
[chuckling] "Invasion
of the Body Snatchers."
I'm laughing now,
but I wasn't laughing
when I was watching it
because you're surrounded
by people who look like
the people you know
[eerie music]
But they're not behaving the
way they should be behaving.
My wife, sick.
- What's wrong with her?
She wrong.
And the idea that,
in the midst of investigating
this phenomenon,
you get caught up in it
Somehow today,
I felt everything had changed.
People were different.
It's like there's some kind
of a hallucinatory flu
going around.
These alien creatures,
they're seed pods,
but then they overtake
your body,
and they strip you
of your humanity,
and they spread
from body to body to body.
[shouts]
What's interesting
about this one is,
most horror movies,
if they don't end happily,
they end satisfyingly,
in a way where
you've vanquished the creature,
you've come out the end
of a really rough struggle,
and you come out,
and you're okay.
In this case,
it's very cynical
and very bleak.
Donald Sutherland,
who you've been on
this journey with throughout,
he's just a guy,
he's just a guy,
and he's just trying
to hang on to life,
and he's just trying to hang on
to the people he cares about.
It's just the brute
will to survive
that's getting him through,
and he's lost everything.
And you sort of fade out,
and you come back
in that ending,
and what's amazing about it
is it's so inevitable,
the way it goes,
and yet you've been so primed
emotionally that you're like,
"I can see this guy.
I can see this guy doing this.
"I can see him just faking it,
to ride it out till he can
figure out a way out of this."
And then Veronica Cartwright
shows up.
Matthew.
She's all sort of sweaty,
and anxious,
and trying to keep cool.
You're actually, for a while,
worried that she's gonna
blow it for him
♪
Which is incredible,
and then that moment.
♪
[shrieking]
- No, no!
No!
That moment would
shatter you no matter what.
There's something
about Sutherland,
that look and the finger point,
and then starts
making that noise.
It's just gut-wrenching.
I can close my eyes
and still see Donald Sutherland
turn around, and open his mouth,
and let out that horrible sound
that made us recognize
he was gone.
He's not the same guy.
He's not our protagonist
anymore.
He's lost.
Because then,
if he's gone, we're all gone.
♪
Hey Scotty, what's
this place like, anyway?
Well, the guy that's renting
it says it's an old place.
A little run down,
but it's right up
in the mountains.
I saw the original
"Evil Dead."
I'll never forget,
the poster said,
"'The most ferociously
original horror film
of the year, ' Stephen King."
So I was like, well,
I gotta go see this movie.
If "Night of the Living Dead"
is the beginning
of the zombie era,
"The Evil Dead"
is the first movie
to sort of domesticate it
and make it into a story
about young people
who go into the woods,
and they don't come
out of the woods.
We've had a lot
of stories like that,
but this one
was especially brutal
and well told.
[screaming]
The location, the atmosphere,
the crazy camera angles,
where that thing
out of nothing is chasing you,
but it's just the camera--
I mean,
that had never been done before,
and the camera itself was used
as a tool for terror.
And that was so exciting,
and something really new,
and something that they brought
to the genre with that.
I mean, it terrified me
when I was young.
It still-- like, now I can--
there are parts
that I still laugh,
but the scene where
she's predicting the cards
Oh, my God, seven of hearts!
You're right!
Hey, Ash,
I guessed the card right!
Yeah, truly amazing.
That whole sequence still
scares the shit out of me.
It's a seven.
I think some
of the best horror scenes,
at least the ones
you remember the most,
they start in a good mood.
Everybody's, like,
having a good time.
So after you've been a little
bit oppressed by the movie,
and you had a bunch
of suspenseful scenes,
you're like,
"Ugh, finally I can relax."
Four of hearts.
Eight of spades.
And then Cheryl starts
saying-- guessing the cards.
They look at each other.
She finally-- bang!
[dramatic music]
Why have you
disturbed our sleep?
Awakened us
from our ancient slumber?
I had never seen
a demon movie like that.
That movie fucked me up.
If we had to talk
about iconic scenes,
the scene that I always remember
is the pencil
going through the ankle.
[shrieks]
[screams]
It was real mind-blowing
also how much humor
was contained in the violence.
[cackling]
♪
And a lot of the violence
was the one-man show
that is Bruce Campbell.
Oh, you bastard.
Why are you torturing me
like this? Why?
He's just the heart
and soul of that film,
and you can see he threw himself
literally into the part,
you know, many times,
over and over again.
You get a sense that
at no time on that set
did anyone go, "I don't know,
it's a little too much."
It's just pedal to the metal
all the way.
[screams]
No, oh, God!
♪
When there is
no more room in hell,
the dead will walk the earth.
I'm not one of those fans
that hates remakes.
I understand, because I worked
at a studio, why they do them.
It's because they're
brand recognition.
And with "Dawn of the Dead,"
I thought that Zack Snyder
brought the fast zombies to life
in a way that
I hadn't seen yet before.
And it was that opening scene.
You meet
Sarah Polley's character.
Calm before the storm.
Little hints that
there is something amiss.
Why did Dr. Cho
order a head X-ray
when the man was bitten
on the hand?
♪
But then she goes home.
You know, they have sexy times
in the shower,
and they go to bed,
and then they wake up.
And what I love
about the opening scene
of "Dawn of the Dead"
is that it's totally fine
to have the neighbor's kid
come over to your house and
wake you up in the morning.
Vivian's here.
Vivian, honey.
Sweetie, are you okay?
Not how did this kid
get into our house,
but is she okay?
Lock your doors, man.
And then we see this
incredible makeup
of this girl who's missing
part of her face.
♪
I mean, she is rabid,
and it's so fun to watch,
and it's so shocking.
Vivian!
Zack Snyder was not afraid
to go with full-on
Romero flesh tear.
[screaming]
Your flesh is just Play-Doh,
and you can tear it,
and blood will spray.
And it's got
a terrific stunt in it too.
She backs up,
and she slams into the bathtub,
and hits her head on the back,
and brings down
the shower curtain.
That's great stuff.
That's good cinema.
And then all of a sudden,
he breaks through the door.
Very "Here's Johnny" moment.
But he's a full-on zombie
at that point,
and she has to burst through
the window to get out.
And the whole time,
we're with Sarah Polley
trying to figure out,
what would you do
in this situation?
Not only is she trying
to survive zombies,
she's also trying to survive
what people are doing.
Help!
- Get back, Ana.
So one thing we know from
zombie movies is people fail.
[siren wailing]
We fail as a civilization.
We do not help each other
in any way.
And it's just Sarah Polley
having to, like,
run for her life while trying
to process what's going on.
And the whole place is chaos,
and it's just
completely apocalyptic.
And you're seeing it
from her point of view.
You're seeing people fleeing.
You're seeing stuff on fire.
It's phenomenal.
Just builds
to this incredible crescendo
until finally,
we're escaping in a car.
[growling]
[screaming]
And then the camera pulls up,
and up, and up, and up,
and you realize
this is happening everywhere.
And then you're like,
oh, yeah, right,
I haven't even seen
the credits yet.
♪
You're just in it.
You're living that moment
and doing things that Romero
probably yearned to do
and probably wanted
the toys for,
to be able to execute that kind
of zombie apocalypse beginning,
you know?
It works so well.
[screaming]
That opening scene
is a movie unto itself.
♪
If I had paid 10 bucks,
gone into a movie theater,
and watched
that ten-minute film,
I would have been like,
"A little short,
but pretty goddamn good."
I think there's a feeling--
and it's probably even
stronger since the pandemic--
but that for all
the law and order around us,
we're always that close
Say something.
- Please.
To something apocalyptic
just messing up the whole thing.
And I think that
every time you think
of the idea of society,
there's part of us that thinks,
"At which point does it end?
What does it take?"
And I don't know why that's fun,
but I guess that's why
we watch horror movies.
[snarling]
[gunshot]
Fear of chaos.
We're always that close
to chaos.
♪
[dramatic music]
♪
♪
[screaming]
♪
Ahh!
♪
A lot of films,
in particular horror films,
have those watercooler moments
that people talk about.
[hissing]
And that sort of spreads
the mythology about the movie.
[screams]
If you haven't seen it,
you have to go see it,
and if you did see it,
you have a very,
very strong opinion about it.
And that opinion
is either shared
with other fellow
horror nerds
This is standard
horror movie stuff.
Ahh!
♪
Or disputed by people
who maybe don't love horror
or just don't agree.
[screams]
So it becomes
this hotbed of debate.
Either you're friends for life
because you love
the "Scanners" exploding head,
or you're all of a sudden
at arms with a friend
because they thought
it was too gross.
[barking]
And then you're just,
"What are you talking about?
That's impossible."
♪
To take the dank
out of the baggie, I got ♪
Five on it
From the trailer, I thought
"Us" was going to be
a Black version of that movie
I personally have seen
many times before.
A family is on vacation.
Ha-ha!
- He's kidding, right?
He's not kidding.
They're isolated.
Something bad happens.
♪
And it is the family
on vacation movie,
but it's also plus so much more.
♪
[screaming]
♪
The scene that
always hits me the hardest
also is my worst fear:
home invasion.
There's a family
in our driveway.
Huh, who is that?
That moment when they look
out into the driveway,
and they see four people
standing there,
and it is so well shot
'cause they're coming
from the POV of the window,
and they're all backlit,
and you don't exactly see
what they are.
It's vague,
but at the same time,
you see the terror
on the mom's face
Uh-uh.
- Hey, hey, hey, hey.
Uh-uh.
As she realizes that
they're in this isolated,
rural environment.
If there are four people
in their driveway,
they are not there for good.
You have these great moments
of family survival horror.
Everything's gonna be fine.
Calm down, okay?
And I love this about "Us."
Zora, the older daughter,
when the father says to Jason
Jason, give me the bat.
And Jason,
clueless, is like
What bat?
Zora has already run
and grabbed the bat
and brought it back.
There's one in the--
- Here, here.
Thank you.
She's definitely the one
I want on
my zombie apocalypse team.
Gabe!
- I got this, I got this.
♪
Jordan Peele, obviously,
he gets the terror,
along with the levity,
and, like, better than anyone.
Now, I thought
I already done told y'all
to get off my property, okay?
So if y'all want to get crazy,
we can get crazy!
♪
Hey, hey, hey, hey!
And it always makes me think,
if four people were standing
in my driveway
and absolutely determined
to get in my house, could they?
And I think most of us
are gonna answer,
"Probably."
Ahh!
We feel safe, but oh, my God,
we are so vulnerable.
Ah!
♪
Oh, please, please, please!
Stop right-- ahh!
I had the chance
to talk to Jordan Peele,
who's visited my UCLA class
many times,
and he's talked about sort of
the genesis also for "Us,"
which is this idea of,
what would happen if you
walked into a train platform
and you saw someone
who looked just like you
across the platform?
And it turned into "Us,"
this idea of not just
one doppelganger,
but an entire family
of doppelgangers.
It's us.
The one thing that is scary
about doppelgangers--
we all know that there are
two sides to ourselves.
With "Us," they brought that
to the front and center as to:
This is what life is.
This is what life can be.
This is the life
you have right now.
Is it yours?
And is it something
that you deserve,
or is it something that,
you know,
just happened to you
by pure circumstance?
And what happens
if that changes?
Don't look.
- Is he dead?
Don't look.
That is one of the biggest
surprises in "Us,"
is that it starts out
as a family vacation movie,
but it really ends up
making you wonder
about your own privilege,
and what you're doing with it,
and what
you're not doing with it,
and how unjust that is.
It's our time now.
Our time up there.
♪
Baa, baa, baa, baa, baa.
The setup to "The Witch"
is that a family of pilgrims,
who are too religious
for the religious community
that they're in,
strike out on their own
and go and sort of set up
in the middle of nowhere
in the woods,
and then are beset upon
by a witch or witches.
♪
Robert Eggers really wanted
to tell a folktale-style story
about a witch in pioneer time
and have everything be
exactly historically perfect,
including the words they say,
and the clothes they wear,
and the lighting that they use.
One shot that I always think
about in that movie,
which is just a perfectly
executed spooky moment,
is when Caleb is being drawn
to the house in the woods
by a beautiful woman.
♪
And then when
the camera pans around,
the hand that actually touches
him is an old crone's hand.
And that is like
a 21st century version
of moments in Hammer movies.
Like, "Captain Kronos:
Vampire Hunter"
has a sequence like that,
where a beautiful woman
suddenly becomes an old crone.
"Crone" is such an ugly word,
don't you think?
Such an ugly thing to be.
No, I don't think
I shall ever be one.
♪
[screams]
In a Hammer movie,
the scariest thing possible
is the ravages of time.
Something a bit cruel
about that.
Cruel but effective,
and "The Witch," I think,
sort of does a much more
elegant version of that shot.
♪
[screaming]
♪
"Zombi 2" is so unhinged.
They're coming back to life.
They're everywhere.
♪
This is Lucio Fulci
at his best.
The one scene of "Zombi"
that everyone will always
remember is the eyeball scene,
where a woman is being pursued
by a zombie,
and she locks herself
inside a room.
♪
And then she's kind of, like,
you know, waiting at the door,
waiting for the zombie.
The zombie breaks his way
through the door,
leaving
all this splintered wood,
grabs her head,
and then painstakingly slowly
brings it towards
this massive shard of wood
that is sticking out.
Why would a zombie do that?
I don't know.
You know, you never see zombies
really being that creative
in other zombie movies,
but this was a creative zombie
that really saw
an opportunity and took it.
A lot of it
is shot from her POV.
It goes back and forth
in kind of a crosscut,
where we're looking at her
as she's screaming
up at the zombie
with the shard getting closer.
And then slowly,
the shard comes into focus,
and everything else
goes out of focus.
♪
And then we go to the side shot,
as we realize
how close they're going.
[whimpering]
The anticipation is
really beautiful and morbid,
and you almost-- you kind
of want her to get away,
but you kind of
want her eye to pop.
And you're not sure up until,
like, the last minute,
what's gonna happen.
You know, you're not sure
if she's actually gonna get--
maybe she'll get away,
but I really hope her eye pops.
[screaming]
And it does.
♪
When the shard
actually goes in,
we see it in full
penetrative grossness.
It's gonna get really graphic
because it's Lucio Fulci,
so it's not just gonna intimate
that it's stabbing you
in the eye.
He's gonna stab that person
in the eye,
and you're gonna watch
every beautiful frame of it.
[screaming]
♪
And I think that's what
makes it so iconic
because he does not pull back
from just giving it to you.
This scene is so terrifying,
and it is because
it's an eyeball.
Fulci knows what will
really push audiences,
and the answer is eyeballs,
teeth
♪
And fingernails.
♪
Because those are things
that we embody with.
If that zombie had lunged
at her neck
[screaming]
I would have been like,
"Cool, zombie's
ripping her neck apart."
But I have no idea
how that feels.
But the idea of us being poked
in the eyeball with something,
most of us
will immediately cringe
because at some point,
we have felt that pain.
We know what it's like
to get poked in the eyeball,
so we're very sensitive.
♪
"The Changeling" opens
with a horrible accident,
where a man sees
his wife and child
get run over by a truck.
♪
He's a music professor.
He moves to a big house
When was the house
last occupied?
Let's see.
About 12 years ago.
Trying to get away
from everything
and restart his life somehow.
There we go.
And the house is
increasingly giving him signs
that there might be
something in there
that's a sign of
some kind of afterlife.
♪
That house is not fit
to live in.
♪
It doesn't want people.
So he has this toy that used
to belong to his daughter.
Um, that was Kathy's,
my daughter's.
And it's moved a few times
around the house,
and he doesn't
really understand it,
and at this point-- I think
later on, he will understand
that there's a child
playing in that house,
that there's the spirit of
a child that's trapped there,
but at this point,
he doesn't know anything yet.
And he eventually decides to go
throw the ball in the river
because he's just tired
of its antics.
♪
I understood the grief
that he was going through
in order to throw the ball away
and into the river,
and just to be gone with it.
Sometimes you need
that one talisman
that you need to get rid of,
that reminds you
of the pain and suffering
that is losing a child,
and knowing that,
"I need to let this go
and have it never come back."
♪
And then, your one biggest fear,
your one biggest life regret
comes just gently bouncing down.
♪
You know at that moment
this is inescapable.
When someone who looks
like George C. Scott,
who looks like he doesn't have
anything to fear in the world,
because he has experience,
because he has knowledge,
because he has strength,
because he's not
a scared little girl,
has those moments
of complete terror.
♪
And I think that's
really what sells
the moment with the red ball.
And every time
there's a scare in this movie,
what sells it is his expression.
There's nothing outward.
There's just those eyes
and the fact
that he's paralyzed.
And when you get really scared,
that's very often what happens.
You can't move.
You just look at it.
And this movie captures
that so well.
♪
Damn son of a bitch.
What is it you want?
What do you want from me?
I've done everything I can do!
There's nothing more to do.
♪
[soft orchestral music]
[singing in French]
Ahh!
With "Phantom of the Opera,"
the 1925 version,
he is closer to
a straight villain
than any other telling
that we've seen.
♪
But still very sympathetic.
This is a character
who has never experienced love,
and yet he is completely,
to his mind,
in love with this woman.
♪
The relationship with Christine
is so endlessly
interesting to me
because it's so abusive
and so terrible,
but in the most
heart-wrenching ways.
[soft music]
♪
When he brings her
down to his lair,
he's playing the organ.
He's working on the opera
"Don Juan Triumphant,"
which is, for him, about her--
about him finally
receiving the love
that he has been
hungry for forever.
And there's this moment
in the scene
where she reaches to him,
and you see him
kind of lean into it
like he's receiving tenderness.
[dramatic organ music]
♪
And then she tears
the mask away.
♪
The first time you see
his face, fully revealed,
lit, like,
that's the mask of death.
♪
You'll never scrub that
from your brain.
And I would kill to be able
to have sat in a cinema in 1925
and been amongst
a crowd of people
who had never seen anything
like that in their lives.
The screams
that must have erupted
in the aisles of the theaters.
My mother saw that movie
in the theater.
And she said people fainted.
You know, here's this gentle guy
wearing a flimsy mask
with lace underneath it
and stuff.
Then when the mask comes off,
he's this living skull.
The horror is meant to be,
like, the horror
of his disfigurement.
But that's not really
what the horror is here.
It's her.
It's Christine.
It's what she has done to him
and what she has taken from him
because of what
the mask represents to him.
To him, it's freedom.
To him, it's the possibility
of being seen
as something more
than his disability.
The film is ultimately
really raising that question
of what constitutes monstrosity,
the same way
that "Frankenstein" is.
Who is the real monster here?
♪
[indistinct chatter]
♪
[shrieking]
- Stop!
♪
Oh, "The Brood," man.
I'm not saying it's the reason
I got a vasectomy,
but I'm not saying it's not.
Oliver Reed plays
this psychologist
who's written a book on
0the physical expressions
of rage,
and how rage can
express itself on the body.
Show me your anger, show me!
Then I can understand it.
[screams]
Wow.
The man is a genius.
And Samantha Eggar's
character,
her rage is contained
in her mind,
but it's expressed through
these tiny little children
who become murderous
expressions of her rage.
[screaming]
Cronenberg has said publicly--
he's also told me
when we were working together--
that it was
a very personal film,
it was about divorce,
and I can see that.
You shouldn't say how much
you hate me,
and you're gonna stop!
It really is
an emotional film,
which is something
that a lot of his movies
kind of keep at a distance.
The final scene
in "The Brood,"
where we reveal the brood,
and Samantha Eggar
kind of lifts her gown
Look.
Is truly gross and disgusting.
First of all,
she's got these, like--
look like potato sprouts on her
that will grow
into these egg sacs.
We can get disgusted,
but if Frank gets disgusted,
he's gonna offend Nola, the ex.
And if she gets offended,
she's gonna get angry.
And Oliver Reed's
down in the bunkhouse,
you know, trying to get Candice.
You know, it's just, this room
of bunk beds of brood.
It's like the worse camp
in the world.
They're just, like,
you know, the worst.
And this parallel
action's going.
It's just so effective.
"The Brood" is interesting,
because it forces men
in particular to confront
the realities of pregnancy
and what it is
women have to go through.
And we do not understand
what it's like
to grow something inside of us
and then to try to get
that thing outside of our body.
And it's amazing,
but it's also--
it's true body horror.
And "The Brood" just takes that
and rubs your face in it.
Just seeing the scene
where she holds up a baby
after the sac has been opened,
and here it is,
covered with fetal blood,
and she licks it clean.
She is basically doing
the most natural thing
for her in the moment.
It might be disgusting,
but it was a very natural thing
for her.
And he is just there,
to the point where,
at one point, he, like--
Oh, God, Nola.
And she realizes that
he is just appalled by her.
No. I disgust you.
She offers up her baby,
and when the reaction
is disgust,
she says,
with a great deal of shock,
"I disgust you."
And it's just a moment, like,
"Yeah, you do!"
From her perspective,
it's beautiful,
and it's a part of her,
and it's something
that is of her body.
The mind-body dualism
that Cronenberg
deals with thematically
in almost all
of his horror films
is really wonderful, and unique,
and iconic specifically
to David Cronenberg.
Cronenberg just says,
"You can repress all you want.
It will come out
in some unpleasant ways."
[banging]
[screaming]
They're doing what
you want them to do!
♪
[screams]
I think some
of the most exciting cinema
of the last 20 years
is coming out of Korea.
♪
"A Tale of Two Sisters"
appeared to be
another one of those kind of
long-haired ghost films,
but it proved to be something
way more inventive
than anyone was expecting.
"A Tale of Two Sisters"
is about a young woman
who gets out of an institution,
an asylum,
and she returns home
to her family,
where she is now
with her sister,
their father,
and their new stepmom.
And as she's adjusting
to this life,
the stepmom is exhibiting
sort of wicked behavior,
classically wicked behavior.
[screaming]
There seems to be a haunting
in the home surrounding them.
[rattling breathing]
And so there's
a lot of psychological,
familial horror going on,
but also a supernatural element
that this is,
in some ways,
a classic ghost story.
Something is wrong, and you
just don't know with who.
♪
It's set inside
this very domestic setting,
inside the house.
And so, these places where
you think should be safe
Like your bedroom, your hallway,
suddenly become very sinister.
What we have is
a dinner scene where
our characters'
stepmother and father
are having lunch with
the stepmother's brother
and his wife.
And she's going on and on
about these stories.
It also uses that ploy
that is so brilliant,
where you get embroiled
in a domestic argument,
a dinner table scene,
which is universal
and relatable.
But then it is
suddenly escalated
by something really,
genuinely shocking.
[coughing]
The brother's wife
has this seizure.
♪
We don't know what kind
of medical condition she has.
We don't know much
about her character at all.
♪
But after she recovers,
she's driving away,
and she says
You see this horrible face
kind of staring at you
from where you don't expect,
underneath--
you know,
against the kitchen floor.
That's the big jolt,
where you don't see it,
coming out of nowhere.
Later, the stepmother
is in the kitchen,
and she bends down
to look underneath the sink.
♪
And as she does,
we're presented,
in the background,
with a girl in a green dress
seated at the table
with her head down.
There's no sting.
There's no crash zoom.
There's no startling sound.
It is silent.
And by the time you absorb
it visually, they cut away.
It is so masterfully done
that you tense up.
Every muscle in your body
kind of seizes.
And it was one
of the first times,
as an adult who'd spent
so much of his life
in this genre
and watching things,
that I started
to watch the film like this.
I was so swept up
by the dread of it all.
♪
[screams]
I think that
the kitchen jump scare
in "A Tale of Two Sisters"
is maybe one of the great
jump scares of all time.
It's a very classical scare,
a very classical piece
of anticipation,
and, you know,
searching under and looking.
And when that hand comes out,
it's one of those great moments
of, like,
oh, the old tricks still work.
Like, you know,
traditional horror filmmaking
can really still get you.
It's great. I love it.
[screaming]
♪
[groans]
[screams]
It's the movie!
The movie's to blame
for all this.
"Demons" was Lamberto Bava's
really big breakthrough.
It's still his biggest film
by far.
It was a huge release
all around the world.
Very popular.
Has almost no plot whatsoever,
which, in this case,
kind of became an advantage
because, you know, even the
dubbing didn't really matter.
What are they after?
I don't know, Baby Pig.
You ask them.
It's us they want, asshole.
See you in hell!
Guys, let's go!
You can walk out and go get
a popcorn for five minutes.
Doesn't really matter-- you can
walk back in, and you're good.
"Demons" is just hip.
It's cool.
♪
It's got a liveliness to it.
It's got a punk rock
attitude to it.
♪
So the setup
for "Demons" is that
there's this sneak preview
for a horror film
that's being held
in Germany, Berlin.
Are you sure you want
to cut class?
Mm-hmm.
And there's this big display
outside with a motorcycle
with a big steel mask,
à la Mario Bava's
"Black Sunday."
Fantastic.
Absolutely fantastic.
And then this woman gets
scratched by it on her face.
Ow, what was that?
Hey, you cut yourself.
- Oh, shit.
That'll teach you
to touch things.
She gets scratched by the mask
and goes into the bathroom,
and she starts to transform.
[gasps] Ahh!
And there's
this incredible sequence
where she's chasing
another audience member
and, like, scratches her.
Help!
The audience realizes
that something
has gone horribly wrong.
They're watching the movie
where this woman's
getting attacked in a tent,
and she's screaming,
and, you know,
there's this thing
running loose on screen.
And, you know,
our main girl says
Hey, there's somebody
behind the screen.
"There's something wrong.
I hear screaming."
And the guy she's with says
Come on,
it's the Dolby system.
I'm telling you,
those screams sound real!
And the screen suddenly
just splits right open,
and this infected girl
just flies right
through the screen.
What happened?
Holy shit!
She's a friend of mine.
Hey, baby, what happened?
Shit, baby, what happened?
And her fingernails-- these
amazing practical effects.
Her fingernails suddenly
just go like this,
and cut into the wood
on the floor.
♪
Gunk is coming out
of her mouth,
and things are, like,
misshapen and bubbling.
And my favorite part--
well, after her teeth fall out
because, you know,
you gotta grow in the new teeth
'cause you can't be a demon
without new teeth.
Her tongue sticks out,
and it's, like, this weird,
spiral, long thing.
Grotesque really
is the right word.
What I love about it is that,
when demon shit
starts to go down,
they all stand around
and watch it.
God, what's happening?
[chuckles]
Because we all know that's
what probably we would do.
And if there were cell phones
back in the "Demons" days,
people would be just sitting
there recording this poor woman
turning into a demon
on the stage.
Get out!
Everybody, get away!
Get out!
What are you waiting for?
Run!
When the transformation
is complete,
and she sort of,
like, tears her way
through this
former audience member's neck,
it again is calling back to
tearing through the screen.
And so we get
these continuous layers,
where the space between
fiction and reality
is essentially blurring.
It's too bloody of a movie.
- Ruth, shut up.
[screaming]
And it just descends
into absolute mayhem.
♪
Let's find the emergency exit!
[screaming]
Smash everything!
♪
And I also like the fact
that it's not really explained
what the film is,
where it came from,
why it turns people into demons.
Doesn't really matter.
What matters is demons
turning people--
other people into demons
and eventually breaking
out of the movie theater
to turn the whole world
into demons.
That movie is so much fun,
and that image of all the demons
with the glowing eyes--
it seems silly,
I'm sure, to another
generation of horror fan,
but it worked so well
for me when I was a kid.
♪
"Doctor Sleep" is
that sequel to "The Shining"
that was well worth waiting for,
revisiting Danny
as an older person
♪
Who comes across a young girl,
Abra,
who also has that "shining,"
who is in the crosshairs
of this hunting cult family
of not vampires,
but kind of vampires.
We are the True Knot,
and we endure.
♪
When I read "Doctor Sleep,"
there was one scene in the book
that was different than
everything else around it.
And that was where the story
became an overt horror story.
And that's in the murder
of Bradley Trevor,
the baseball boy,
at the hands of the True Knot.
Just saw your game.
You are ready for the majors.
Well played.
- Thanks.
It takes a group
of antagonists
who, up until that point
It's okay.
We're friends.
You want to hop in.
Are kind of cheeky,
they're kind of funny.
And then this scene happens,
and you understand how it is
that these creatures exist,
and how they eat, and how they
have these elongated lives.
And it's that they harvest
the life force
of these kids
who have the shining,
who have
these special abilities.
What better way
- No, please, let me go!
To build up
your main villain
I won't tell!
I won't tell, please!
Than to show her commit
the most horrendous act
that she could possibly commit?
It's just so utterly brutal.
You don't see children murdered
on screen a lot like that.
That's when you know that
a movie is really going there.
The kid, he's, like,
"Are you gonna hurt me?"
And Rose the Hat says
Yes.
- No!
"In fact, it makes it
better for us.
So yeah,
we're gonna hurt you a lot."
And before you know it,
he's screaming,
and the steam is coming,
and their eyes are glowing.
And it looks like this trippy,
like, orgy, almost.
♪
Jacob Tremblay
selling the shit out of it,
doing such a great job,
being so believable,
acting with no ego at all.
It shakes you to your core
because of the reaction
of this little boy.
The more he's in pain,
the more they can feed off it.
Again, you don't often see that,
but you also don't often see
the villains
actually enjoying that act.
What really made it scary
was not just
that he was being tortured
and murdered,
but this was a ritual
that was just an everyday part
of their existence.
This is how they feed.
This is just Tuesday
for them, you know?
We designed the shots
to keep the explicit violence
completely off screen.
And ultimately, it didn't
make a difference at all
because Jacob Tremblay
committed to
the performance so well
that you don't need to see
the explicit violence.
The pain and the anguish
on his face make it unbearable.
Sometimes,
it's a matter of frames.
Just lingering just
a little bit too long
is the thing
that's gonna make you turn off.
I screened it
for Stephen King.
He loved the movie,
and his only comment was,
"Boy, that baseball boy scene
"goes on a little too long,
doesn't it?
That's a bit much."
It turned out
to be about the sound.
[screaming]
It turned out
to be about Jacob's voice,
and it turned out to be
about the sound of the knife
and of the steam.
We cut the scene down to,
I think, about a quarter
of what it originally was.
And it remains the scene
where I would see people get up
and walk out during screenings.
Our executives would get up
and walk out.
My wife got up and walked out.
It's a devastating sequence.
Damn, I thought he had
another few minutes in him.
♪
They will say that
I have shed innocent blood.
What's blood for
if not for shedding?
With my hook for a hand,
I'll split you from your groin
to your gullet.
As a kid, night after night,
I would just assume,
if I opened up my eyes,
I would see Candyman
hovering above me.
Just night after night,
and I would just be paralyzed.
And I just wouldn't sleep.
And I knew if I tried to turn
on my side to go back to sleep,
my shoulder would touch him,
you know, just--
and then that would be it.
I would just get ripped
groin to gullet.
The legend
first appeared in 1890.
Candyman was the son of a slave.
He's chased by this mob,
and they smear honey
all over his body
from this nearby beehive.
And then the bees
sting him to death.
And supposedly, as he's dying,
they kind of taunt him
as "Candyman, Candyman."
They say his name five times,
and he dies.
Poor Candyman.
He's not just some monster.
He was a person.
And there still
is a person there.
And he really does reach out
to you delicately.
And then he brutally kills you.
[screams]
He's unlike all
the other movie monsters
because there's something
so real and also so beautiful.
Do you believe in me?
Tony Todd brought such
a depth to that character
and such a soulfulness
to that character
that I think
a lot of other actors
would have not done that.
They would have just kind of
played him as evil or wicked.
Her death will be a tale
to frighten children,
to make lovers cling closer
in the rapture.
And then Virginia Madsen,
that was a tour de force
performance for her as well.
♪
I think
the most significant scene
is the first time you see him.
It's in broad daylight.
Virginia's character, Helen,
has already been
through the wringer.
And as she searches for her car
in the middle of the afternoon,
about 100 meters away
is this tall, elegant gentleman
who's very gently
calling her name.
"Helen, Helen."
Yes?
- Helen.
There is something
very scary about parking lots,
first of all,
especially as a woman.
You want to walk through
the parking lot
with your keys ready like claws
in case someone bothers you.
And this is definitely
someone bothering you.
Helen, I came for you.
But the fact that
he had this hold on her
is part of
what makes it so scary.
So she's not reacting the way
she should be reacting.
She's just
sort of under a spell,
kind of like he's a vampire.
Be my victim.
And that's when I'm like,
"Oh, boy,
we're in trouble now."
Bernard Rose, the director,
had a hypnotist on set,
so whether it was actually
implied or not, who knows.
But she was put under for
every scene that involved me.
Forget about all the stabbing
the psychiatrist in the back.
[screaming]
Who doesn't want
to do that to their shrink?
But that moment of them meeting,
I think, is iconic as hell.
Clive Barker is so great
at coming up with scares
that you're not used to.
They come from left field.
They come
from a different direction.
But "Candyman," in particular,
the scene that
most affected me--
[grunting]
When Candyman, Tony Todd,
opens his mouth,
and there are live bees.
And that was for real.
That's not special effects.
That was pre-digital.
You can tell.
The veracity of that--
you know this is a guy
with a mouth full of bees,
and that freaked me out.
Listen, I got
my master's in theater, man,
and we were taught
to be fearless.
And you approach every role
as if it's a thing
that's just gonna be--
make that magic moment.
And I knew that
when I read the script,
nobody had ever done
that before,
and nobody's done it since.
It's freaky,
and it still feels freaky.
I mean, I can feel them
humming around inside my mouth.
It was crazy.
But you gotta love this.
You gotta love it.
If you don't love it,
walk the fuck away.
♪
[soft music]
What is that?
- A caper.
It's a rat turd.
A what?
- A rat turd.
A caper.
- If it's a caper, eat it.
[chuckling] "Invasion
of the Body Snatchers."
I'm laughing now,
but I wasn't laughing
when I was watching it
because you're surrounded
by people who look like
the people you know
[eerie music]
But they're not behaving the
way they should be behaving.
My wife, sick.
- What's wrong with her?
She wrong.
And the idea that,
in the midst of investigating
this phenomenon,
you get caught up in it
Somehow today,
I felt everything had changed.
People were different.
It's like there's some kind
of a hallucinatory flu
going around.
These alien creatures,
they're seed pods,
but then they overtake
your body,
and they strip you
of your humanity,
and they spread
from body to body to body.
[shouts]
What's interesting
about this one is,
most horror movies,
if they don't end happily,
they end satisfyingly,
in a way where
you've vanquished the creature,
you've come out the end
of a really rough struggle,
and you come out,
and you're okay.
In this case,
it's very cynical
and very bleak.
Donald Sutherland,
who you've been on
this journey with throughout,
he's just a guy,
he's just a guy,
and he's just trying
to hang on to life,
and he's just trying to hang on
to the people he cares about.
It's just the brute
will to survive
that's getting him through,
and he's lost everything.
And you sort of fade out,
and you come back
in that ending,
and what's amazing about it
is it's so inevitable,
the way it goes,
and yet you've been so primed
emotionally that you're like,
"I can see this guy.
I can see this guy doing this.
"I can see him just faking it,
to ride it out till he can
figure out a way out of this."
And then Veronica Cartwright
shows up.
Matthew.
She's all sort of sweaty,
and anxious,
and trying to keep cool.
You're actually, for a while,
worried that she's gonna
blow it for him
♪
Which is incredible,
and then that moment.
♪
[shrieking]
- No, no!
No!
That moment would
shatter you no matter what.
There's something
about Sutherland,
that look and the finger point,
and then starts
making that noise.
It's just gut-wrenching.
I can close my eyes
and still see Donald Sutherland
turn around, and open his mouth,
and let out that horrible sound
that made us recognize
he was gone.
He's not the same guy.
He's not our protagonist
anymore.
He's lost.
Because then,
if he's gone, we're all gone.
♪
Hey Scotty, what's
this place like, anyway?
Well, the guy that's renting
it says it's an old place.
A little run down,
but it's right up
in the mountains.
I saw the original
"Evil Dead."
I'll never forget,
the poster said,
"'The most ferociously
original horror film
of the year, ' Stephen King."
So I was like, well,
I gotta go see this movie.
If "Night of the Living Dead"
is the beginning
of the zombie era,
"The Evil Dead"
is the first movie
to sort of domesticate it
and make it into a story
about young people
who go into the woods,
and they don't come
out of the woods.
We've had a lot
of stories like that,
but this one
was especially brutal
and well told.
[screaming]
The location, the atmosphere,
the crazy camera angles,
where that thing
out of nothing is chasing you,
but it's just the camera--
I mean,
that had never been done before,
and the camera itself was used
as a tool for terror.
And that was so exciting,
and something really new,
and something that they brought
to the genre with that.
I mean, it terrified me
when I was young.
It still-- like, now I can--
there are parts
that I still laugh,
but the scene where
she's predicting the cards
Oh, my God, seven of hearts!
You're right!
Hey, Ash,
I guessed the card right!
Yeah, truly amazing.
That whole sequence still
scares the shit out of me.
It's a seven.
I think some
of the best horror scenes,
at least the ones
you remember the most,
they start in a good mood.
Everybody's, like,
having a good time.
So after you've been a little
bit oppressed by the movie,
and you had a bunch
of suspenseful scenes,
you're like,
"Ugh, finally I can relax."
Four of hearts.
Eight of spades.
And then Cheryl starts
saying-- guessing the cards.
They look at each other.
She finally-- bang!
[dramatic music]
Why have you
disturbed our sleep?
Awakened us
from our ancient slumber?
I had never seen
a demon movie like that.
That movie fucked me up.
If we had to talk
about iconic scenes,
the scene that I always remember
is the pencil
going through the ankle.
[shrieks]
[screams]
It was real mind-blowing
also how much humor
was contained in the violence.
[cackling]
♪
And a lot of the violence
was the one-man show
that is Bruce Campbell.
Oh, you bastard.
Why are you torturing me
like this? Why?
He's just the heart
and soul of that film,
and you can see he threw himself
literally into the part,
you know, many times,
over and over again.
You get a sense that
at no time on that set
did anyone go, "I don't know,
it's a little too much."
It's just pedal to the metal
all the way.
[screams]
No, oh, God!
♪
When there is
no more room in hell,
the dead will walk the earth.
I'm not one of those fans
that hates remakes.
I understand, because I worked
at a studio, why they do them.
It's because they're
brand recognition.
And with "Dawn of the Dead,"
I thought that Zack Snyder
brought the fast zombies to life
in a way that
I hadn't seen yet before.
And it was that opening scene.
You meet
Sarah Polley's character.
Calm before the storm.
Little hints that
there is something amiss.
Why did Dr. Cho
order a head X-ray
when the man was bitten
on the hand?
♪
But then she goes home.
You know, they have sexy times
in the shower,
and they go to bed,
and then they wake up.
And what I love
about the opening scene
of "Dawn of the Dead"
is that it's totally fine
to have the neighbor's kid
come over to your house and
wake you up in the morning.
Vivian's here.
Vivian, honey.
Sweetie, are you okay?
Not how did this kid
get into our house,
but is she okay?
Lock your doors, man.
And then we see this
incredible makeup
of this girl who's missing
part of her face.
♪
I mean, she is rabid,
and it's so fun to watch,
and it's so shocking.
Vivian!
Zack Snyder was not afraid
to go with full-on
Romero flesh tear.
[screaming]
Your flesh is just Play-Doh,
and you can tear it,
and blood will spray.
And it's got
a terrific stunt in it too.
She backs up,
and she slams into the bathtub,
and hits her head on the back,
and brings down
the shower curtain.
That's great stuff.
That's good cinema.
And then all of a sudden,
he breaks through the door.
Very "Here's Johnny" moment.
But he's a full-on zombie
at that point,
and she has to burst through
the window to get out.
And the whole time,
we're with Sarah Polley
trying to figure out,
what would you do
in this situation?
Not only is she trying
to survive zombies,
she's also trying to survive
what people are doing.
Help!
- Get back, Ana.
So one thing we know from
zombie movies is people fail.
[siren wailing]
We fail as a civilization.
We do not help each other
in any way.
And it's just Sarah Polley
having to, like,
run for her life while trying
to process what's going on.
And the whole place is chaos,
and it's just
completely apocalyptic.
And you're seeing it
from her point of view.
You're seeing people fleeing.
You're seeing stuff on fire.
It's phenomenal.
Just builds
to this incredible crescendo
until finally,
we're escaping in a car.
[growling]
[screaming]
And then the camera pulls up,
and up, and up, and up,
and you realize
this is happening everywhere.
And then you're like,
oh, yeah, right,
I haven't even seen
the credits yet.
♪
You're just in it.
You're living that moment
and doing things that Romero
probably yearned to do
and probably wanted
the toys for,
to be able to execute that kind
of zombie apocalypse beginning,
you know?
It works so well.
[screaming]
That opening scene
is a movie unto itself.
♪
If I had paid 10 bucks,
gone into a movie theater,
and watched
that ten-minute film,
I would have been like,
"A little short,
but pretty goddamn good."
I think there's a feeling--
and it's probably even
stronger since the pandemic--
but that for all
the law and order around us,
we're always that close
Say something.
- Please.
To something apocalyptic
just messing up the whole thing.
And I think that
every time you think
of the idea of society,
there's part of us that thinks,
"At which point does it end?
What does it take?"
And I don't know why that's fun,
but I guess that's why
we watch horror movies.
[snarling]
[gunshot]
Fear of chaos.
We're always that close
to chaos.
♪
[dramatic music]
♪